Monroe County Democrats propose solution to the unFAIR plan
The Monroe County Democratic Caucus just held a press conference where they proposed a solution to Maggie’s shortsighted reallocation of sales tax revenue at the expense of the local school districts otherwise known as the unFAIR plan.
They are proposing a chargeback plan for the sheriffs road patrol.
The plan in a nutshell is to model the MCC chargeback concept. Everyone will contribute to the sheriff department and road patrol. It is currently funded from general fund at a $28 million dollar level. Of course, everyone uses certain aspects of the Sheriff department. Things like - Scuba, airport security, SWAT, and the Jail. But not everyone uses the road patrol.
The towns who use the road patrol more will pay more. So, say Brighton who has its own police department will not pay as much as say Henrietta who does not.
OK what is the point? Aren’t we are just shuffling money around?
Well - here is the key.
The Dems have consistently said the unFAIR plan balances the budget at the expense of our children. Harry Bronson first said this at when this sham was passed way back.
Well - like it or not monies have been removed from the school budgets and, as a result, schools are pinched - bottom line; the wonderful educational system we have here in Rochester is in jeopardy.
So, it is a question of priorities. How important is education? How important is making our education system whole or having a truly local solution, not relying on Albany?
Charging for the road patrol frees up additional funds that can then be allocated to the schools. Sheriff funding is not reduced, deputies laid off or any of that nonsense.
Assuming of course Maggie or the GOP-led legislature care about kids education.
Anyway - video and audio will come later -
Note to the Dem Caucus - next time have a chart of something at the press Conference. That’s OK - that is where we come in - Like the MCC Chargeback graph or the unFAIR plan chargeback.
The Monroe County Legislature will deal with this at their meeting tonight.
Stay tuned…..
Until someone addresses the issue that the money for schools goes for teacher labor and their very generous retirement fund, and the system which keeps poor teachers on the job without a viable means for firing at will, the school budgets (whether paid for locally via Albany) will continue to increase well beyond the rate of inflation. That is the elephant in the room.
So that is the elephant eh? “poor” teachers who take advantage of the generous retirement fund that can’t be “fired”?
Gee, I wonder how anyone ever got by from Brighton, Pittsford, Webster or hell, any of the other suburban schools.
No, my friend, the elephant in the room is lack of a universal health care system which eliminates health care cost from employers so to reduce the overall labor budget.
These are the people who devote their lives to educating the youth of America, and this is what you come up with???
You want to go after the administrators, well, maybe, but even in that respect, this is no piece of cake job, and you couldn’t pay me enough to take it on.
This is the most important job in our country-education. Name me another occupation where you have greater influence over the future of our nation(except, perhaps, Mothering-but don’t even get me started there).
I would agree with your administrator assessment, however ….
There are many unfunded mandates and requirements that need to be managed. I’m sure someone in our varied readers can address what the impact of therse things have on administrators.
So staying with bigboys elephant metaphor - I suspect that is an unseen elephant for administrators.
[...] the Democrats have discussed this before, most recently in December just before the budget was passed and this idea was shot down by the 3 [...]